Apple activity rings
Currently, Apple unveiled watchOS 11, which includes capabilities for the Apple Watch that expand on the company’s cutting-edge sensor technology, sophisticated algorithms, and science-based methodology to provide consumers with unprecedented personalisation and game-changing insights into their fitness and overall health. The ability to quantify training load offers a revolutionary new experience when working out for greater fitness and performance, and the new Vitals app displays important health indicators and context to help users make more informed decisions on a daily basis.
The Smart Stack and Photos face employ AI to enable greater personalisation, Apple activity rings may be customised even further, and Apple Watch and the Health app on iPhone and iPad provide extra assistance for people who are expecting. Apple Watch now has additional features for the double tap gesture, the Translate app, and Check In for enhanced convenience and connectivity.
Apple senior director of watchOS Engineering David Clark said, “watchOS is the world’s most advanced wearable operating system, helping Apple Watch users throughout the day. stay healthy, active, and connected.” “This autumn, watchOS 11 offers customers more personalised customisation to meet their specific needs, more ways to stay connected while on the road, and additional actionable health and fitness insights,” making the Apple Watch even more indispensable.
More Details about Important Health Metrics are Revealed by the Vitals App
Users of the Apple Watch can monitor vital health parameters such as blood oxygen levels, heart rate, respiration rate, wrist temperature, and length of sleep as they sleep. Users can rapidly monitor these important health measures and obtain better context about their health with the help of the new Vitals app, which is compatible with watchOS 11.
Because Apple Watch analyses these indicators, users can now quickly explore noteworthy measures, check in on their daily health condition, and identify when a statistic is outside of their regular range. Users may receive a notification and a message explaining how changes in these particular measures could be related to other parts of their life, including elevation changes, alcohol intake, or even disease, if two or more of the metrics are outside of their usual range.
Apple’s health features were created with healthcare experts’ involvement and are based on scientific principles. Vitals employs an algorithm created with real-world data from the Apple Heart and Movement Study, a study that aims to increase Apple’s understanding of heart health and physical activity, to determine out-of-range classifications and notifications.
Extra Assistance Throughout Pregnancy
Pregnant customers can take advantage of enhanced support provided by watchOS 11, iOS 18, and iPadOS 18 to accommodate changes in their physical and mental health during this critical period. The Cycle Tracking app on Apple Watch displays a user’s gestational age and lets them report symptoms for common pregnancy symptoms when they log a pregnancy in the Health app on their iPhone or iPad. Given that heart rate tends to rise during pregnancy, they will also be asked to assess items like their high heart rate notification threshold.
Pregnant users of the iPhone or iPad can also opt to receive monthly reminders to complete a mental health evaluation through the Health app, as there may be an increased risk of mental health disorders like depression during and after pregnancy. Since the danger of falls increases during the third trimester of pregnancy, walking stadiness, as detected by the iPhone, can also warn users of a potential fall risk earlier.
A Revolutionary New Perspective on Training Load
With watchOS 11, users can now track the effects of their workouts’ duration and intensity on their bodies over time with the help of a new metric called training load. Users can better understand the physical strain of their workouts over the past seven days as opposed to the previous 28 days by using training load.These insights can assist a person make intelligent daily routine decisions when training for their first 5K, bicycle competition, or marathon.
Intensity can be measured by a fresh effort rating on a scale of 1 to 10 after each workout. Using a variety of data sources, including age, weight, and height, coupled with workout data, such as GPS, heart rate, and elevation, popular cardio-based workout kinds will automatically provide an estimated effort rating with the help of an inventive new algorithm.
Additionally, users have the option to manually modify this estimate to account for additional variables like stress or discomfort. Users can still enter an effort rating at the end of each workout, even for exercises like strength training where an algorithmic estimate is not offered.
The 28-day training load will be determined by Apple Watch based on a weighted average that considers the duration and effort ratings of users’ exercises throughout this time. Users of the Activity app can view a comparison of their training load during the last seven days vs their training load over a 28-day period, with the results categorised as below, stable, above, or substantially above.
In order to modify their training for the optimum outcomes, this helps show if the strain on their body is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same. The iPhone fitness app contains further information about the potential effects on their fitness, such as potential changes in fitness or risk of injury, if they continue to train at that level.
The ability to train and a user’s daily health state can be linked, so data from the Vitals app in the Activity app on the Apple Watch or the Fitness app on the iPhone can be viewed with training load. Within the Vitals app, users can also view their training load.
Apple Watch Activity Rings
More Personalised Fitness App and Activity Rings
Users of Apple Watches are encouraged to move more, sit less, and exercise every day by Apple Activity rings, which are now much more customisable with watchOS 11. Users can now suspend their rings for a day, week, month, or longer without interfering with their award streaks, whether they are preparing an injury recovery day, need a day off, or for any other reason. To ensure that the rings offer just the correct amount of encouragement at just the right times, users can also personalise their Activity ring goals by day of the week.
Users of the iPhone Fitness app can also personalise the Summary tab to display specific information, such as new metrics for running, hiking, swimming, and mindfulness exercises.
In order to encourage users to maintain consistency in their workout practice, stay inspired, and make the most of its extensive library, Apple workout+ has undergone redesigns in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and tvOS 18. A customised For You area, Explore and Library areas, search tools, and improved prizes are among the updates.
Smart Stack
Apple Watch Smart Stack
Users can personalise their Apple Watch experience in a number of ways, and watchOS 11 updates have made the device even more convenient and personalised.
The Smart Stack, which is even more sophisticated in watchOS 11, is intended to assist users in rapidly accessing critical information from any watch face. There are now new widgets accessible, such as Shazam, Photos, Distance, and more. In addition, the Smart Stack makes widget recommendations based on time, date, location, daily schedules, and other factors, making it even easier for users to use Apple Watch capabilities when they need them.
The new severe weather notifications widget, for instance, has the ability to show up before of a thunderstorm. Users can now engage with apps straight from the Smart Stack with the help of new interactive widgets, and Live Activities is now accessible on Apple Watch through the Smart Stack as well.
With the aid of machine learning, the Photos watch face in watchOS 11 can swiftly evaluate thousands of photos to provide recommendations based on composition, aesthetics, and even facial emotions. The optimal composition is then determined by a unique algorithm that accounts for depth and the subject’s placement within the frame. Time sizes, layouts, font selections, and other customisation options allow users to further customise the face. Additionally, the Photos face now has Dynamic mode, allowing users to be greeted with a fresh image each time they lift their wrist.
Additional Convenience & Methods for Keeping in Touch
Check In, which is now accessible on Apple Watch even when exercising, aims to provide users an even greater sense of security and connection. Users can access Check In from within the Workout app so a friend or family member may watch out for them when their workout ends, whether they are going for an early morning run or a late-night gym session. Similar to how they do on an iPhone, users can initiate a Check In from Messages.
Users can obtain translation for any of the 20 supported languages right on their wrist by downloading the Translate app to their Apple Watch. When customers travel to a place where the language spoken there differs from their Apple Watch, the Apple Watch can immediately recommend a Translate app widget thanks to the new intelligence of the Smart Stack. Additionally, Romanization the pronunciation of languages using the Latin alphabet is now offered by Translate.
To make using the Apple Watch with one hand even simpler, the double tap gesture may now be used to navigate through any app, including Messages, Calendar, and Weather.
Among the other changes in watchOS 11 are:
- Even more workouts, such as soccer, American football, Australian football, outdoor hockey, lacrosse, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, golf, outdoor rowing and more, can be tracked distance with the use of GPS location improvements in the Workout app. For more fitness options, users can also view their route maps.
- Users may now create an interval-based workout with support for sets of work and recuperation and haptics to indicate when it’s time to go on to the next interval by using Custom Workouts for Pool Swims. A new Up Next workout view can be added to any Custom Workout to display the remaining portion of the current interval and give an overview of the one that’s coming up.
- All U.S. national parks have treks available on Apple Maps, which can be downloaded to an Apple Watch for offline turn-by-turn navigation even when an iPhone is not in close proximity. Within the iPhone Maps app, users may also design custom walking routes and save them for subsequent use only with their Apple Watch.
- Apple Watch will get consolidated alerts from the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, facilitated by Apple Intelligence.
- The information on tickets in Apple Wallet, including the venue’s opening and start time, is improved through enhanced ticketing. At the event, a Live Activity will launch, allowing users to view key information at the top of the Smart Stack, including their seats.
- By just holding their Apple Watch close to another Apple Watch or iPhone, users will be able to transfer and receive Apple Cash with the Tap to Cash feature.
Fresh Resources for Programmers
With the help of new APIs included in watchOS 11, developers can now benefit from the enhanced intelligence and functionalities of the Smart Stack as well as the captivating double tap gesture.
In addition to adding features like interactivity to their widgets, developers can also use relevant cues like time and date to have crucial information from their app display in the Smart Stack at precisely the correct time. The Smart Stack will automatically display Live Activities, allowing users to view real-time information such as when a Panera Bread order is ready or when a Flighty flight’s gate has changed. An API allows developers to alter how a Live Activity appears on an Apple Watch.
Furthermore, the Double Tap API enables app developers to specify tasks that users can perform with a single hand, such recording their infant’s sleep duration on Sprout’s Baby Tracker app.
Confidentiality
Every Apple feature has been designed and developed with privacy as a top priority. All of the user’s health and fitness information in the Health app, with the exception of Medical ID, is encrypted when their device is secured with a passcode, Touch ID, or Face ID. All health data that is backed up to iCloud is secured on Apple servers and while it is in transit. Health app data synced to iCloud is encrypted end-to-end when using iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS with the default two-factor authentication and a passcode; this means that Apple does not have the key to decode the data and hence cannot access it.
